Elyse is working as a travel Occupational Therapist. Her job typically comes in the form of 13 week contracts where a hospital (or other healthcare facility) reimburses her to relocate to an area and fill a staffing vacancy. There might be a resident OT out on maternity leave; other instances she is filling in until a place can find a permanent candidate. We’ve had pretty good luck finding contracts in areas we’re interested in, due to the current demand for healthcare workers. For the winters we’ve been trying to be near the mountains, and close enough to ski resorts to do day trips when we’re both off work. For the summers we aim for places that aren’t too hot since we’re traveling with a big husky.
John is fully remote working for a software company out of Virginia. As long as there is an internet connection, he’s able to log on and work his 9-5 EST hours. This has worked great in the winter because he’s able to sign off around 2-3p local time and get out with the dog while there’s still daylight. Since his job depends on a reliable internet connection, we opted for a satellite internet setup (Starlink) which allows us to connect virtually anywhere with a clear view of the sky. We also have a couple of back up cellular hot-spots, but we very rarely have to lean on those.
Elyse has wanted to do travel Occupational Therapy since becoming a licensed OT in 2017. It was harder pre-covid for new grads to get travel placements due to lack of work experience, and so she had been working at a hospital in Northern Virginia for five years prior to us leaving in late 2022. Since college, John had been planning to do a year long cross-country trip with a tentative departure date for Fall 2020 – though this was derailed by the pandemic and the closing of National Parks. However when we traveled to Utah/Colorado in December 2021, it sparked the travel conversation again and we eventually decided to hit the road in the Fall of 2022.
Since leaving Virginia, we’ve been calling a 30 foot camper home. It’s been the best of both worlds since we don’t have to look for short-term apartment leases (not to mention a lot of places don’t allow husky’s) but we also don’t have to pack in the sense of boxes and a u-haul each time we move. What better than to have an apartment on wheels? And that’s not to imply we’re transient at all times – we find a campground in each city where we stay planted, for the most part.